Visions in the Night
by I-Threaten-My-Houseplants
Summary: Thrown into jail at the age of four by her own father, Sarah Barrymore has been told she was crazy all her life, simply because she sees snippets of the future. The only thing keeping her sane is the face that every vision always comes true.
1. Prologue

An ear-piercing scream tore the night in two as a small girl, aged four, clung to her father's arm. "Don't give me away, don't! You can't! I'm not crazy, no! Don't give me away!" she shrieked, shaking with heaving sobs. The man holding her snorted in disgust at his daughter's pleas. The girl shook her head violently as she was thrust into the hands of another man, the town's jailer. "NO!" she screamed. The man cackled and slung her over his shoulder roughly. The attack dog on the leash in his hand growled at the child, causing her to shrink slightly. "Please! Please, don't let him take me, Daddy! I'M NOT A BAD DOG!" she wailed. The man's upper lip curled as he turned around, fists tightening in annoyance at the girls screams.

"The white dog is a good dog, a good dog, good. The black dog is a bad dog, a bad dog, bad. He'll eat your flesh down to the bone, down to the bone. He'll gobble you up 'till you're gone, 'till you're gone," the jailer chanted, voice like nails on a chalkboard. The girl struggled weakly against his grasp, but to no avail.

Her father walked with apparent calm, with an air of triumph, as he left his child with the other man. "Oh, but you are a bad dog, Sarah, you're bad enough to no longer be called a Barrymore. You're worse than a bad dog, Sarah."

That night was the first time the monster known as the Demon Hound appeared.


	2. Scream

The Houndsworth village jail has but one occupant, and she is not even a criminal. Sarah Barrymore curls up into a ball in the corner of the cell that has been her home since the age of four. Her hands shake, fear evident in her blue eyes. Blood seeps from the wounds all over her body, soaking the tattered shift that covers her. The jailer slurs something along the lines of "the black dog is a bad dog, a bad dog, bad," and the whip in his hand cracks again and she can't take it anymore. She screams. The sound is anguished, choked with sobs. The darkness of the cell is closing in on her, she can't breathe—and everything falls away as she enters the blissful unconsciousness.

_I~I~I~I~I~I~I~I~I~I~I~I~I~I~I~I~I_

Sebastian hears the scream first, and Ciel not long after. "What was that?" he asks, his one visible eye widening.

"I do not know, sir," Sebastian answers.

"Find out," his master says. The demon hound in the carriage with the servants barks, even though he is in his human form. He's an annoying thing, but Ciel enjoys watching Sebastian suffer while trying to "train" the dog. Sebastian disappears, running towards the town they had left only minutes ago. Even at this speed, running is no exertion for him—he is a demon, after all. He soon arrives at the source of the sound—the Houndsworth jail. The butler makes his way into the dirty building, down to the cells. The smell of alcohol is strong here, and Sebastian's expression shows disgust as he finds a grimy man passed out drunk at a table. The cells seem empty, but on closer inspection, a small shape is visible slumped in the corner of one of the cells.

A girl aged about nineteen, in a bloodstained shift, with matted brown-or is it blonde?-hair going in every direction is leaning unconscious against the wall. The bloodstains are slowly, ever so slowly growing, the crimson liquid oozing from wounds all over her body. She's been whipped from the looks of it. The weapon is clutched tightly in the man's hand, covered in the girl's blood. Sebastian steps up to the bars and bends them effortlessly. He scoops the girl up in his arms, knowing that the scream came from her. He races back to the carriages, past the maid to the late Lord Barrymore, Angela. They briefly narrow their eyes at each other but say nothing. Then Angela notices the girl and gasps. Sebastian pointedly ignores her reaction and keeps going towards his master. "I believe she was the source of the sound," he says, perfectly calm, as Ciel's mouth opens in surprise.

"Who is she?" he asks, voice barely a whisper.

Angela runs up to the carriage. "This is Sarah Barrymore, the late Lord's daughter," she says quietly. "She was being held in the jail, because Houndsworth has no insane asylum."

"Why would she need to be held in an insane asylum?" Ciel asks, his voice icy now.

"She has…visions…" Angela says delicately, "hallucinations, some people called them…when she was four years old; Lord Barrymore put her there to avoid dealing with her, so to say. She claimed to have seen the future, specifically Pluto. She did so many times…" Angela sighs heavily. "It was always a great shame to Lord Barrymore, so he had decided that rather than let Sarah be seen by anyone, he would…contain her in the village's jail. I suppose now that he's gone, though… we have no reason to keep her there."

"Which is why I will take her with me," Ciel says. Sebastian looks up at him, surprised.

"Are you sure, Young Master? We don't even know if she's mentally stable," he says, pointing out facts.

"Sebastian, put her with the servants," Ciel orders. The butler complies and soon the girl lies across one of the seats of the servants' carriage.

"Who's she?" Bardroy, the cook, says past his cigarette.

"She is a guest of the Young Master's. Try not to kill her," Sebastian warns. The servants nod and Mei-rin scoots out of her seat to get a closer look at Sarah.

"She's pretty, yes she is!" the maid exclaims. Finny, the gardener, nods in agreement. "She's covered in blood, yes…" Mei-rin trails off and goes back to her seat, staring at the girl. The shift covering her is soaked, clinging to her skin. The shapes of her ribs are visible through it.

"And awfully skinny," Bardroy remarks, "Well, then, we'll just get her to try some of my cooking!" he says excitedly.

"I don't think that's the best idea," Finny says. "Maybe we should just let Sebastian take care of her," he goes to give her a pat on the head, but Bardroy holds him back with a shake of the head. "Oh, right. Sorry." Finny is incredibly strong, and if he touches the girl, he might just kill her. The gardener doesn't know his own strength.

The servants won't stop staring at Sarah Barrymore for the whole hour-long ride back to the Phantomhive manor. As the carriages pull into the front walk of the manor, Ciel begins to give orders. "Sebastian. First, take the girl and clean her up. Bandage her wounds and put her in a spare room. Dress her in something of Mei-rin's for now. The rest of you... don't destroy anything. Oh, and please deal with the carriages."

"Yes, my lord," Sebastian says. He helps his (rather short) master out of his carriage and leads him into the house, then looks back at the girl. Sebastian lifts her out of the carriage gently, cautiously, as if he could break her with the slightest touch. He probably could, seeing as she's so thin and frail. In the hour that the group has been traveling, she's gone from being just plain unconscious to asleep. Her thin form shivers against the cold air. Sarah's eyes dart back and forth behind closed eyelids.

In her sleep, she mumbles something, barely audible. "No," she says, "Don't give me away…" it was followed by a small whimper. Her brow furrows and she looks like a small child having a bad dream. She shivers a little more and Sebastian takes her inside to get her out of the cold.


	3. Color Change

(Sarah's POV)

Sarah turns over in her sleep, face connecting with a pillow. Wait, what? She only ever remembers sleeping in a real bed once, at the age of four. Her eyes snap open and she sees clean, white blankets covering her. They're soft, like the bed she occupies. It's warm, so beautifully warm. Sarah sits up slowly, pain radiating from the slashes all over her body. She notices the white nightgown she's been dressed in and looks at her arm. The wounds have been covered by bandages. Her hair is brushed. She's not covered in her own blood and the dirt of the cell she calls home. She's not even in the cell. She's in a large room. It's a beautiful place, and she feels like she stands out in it. She shrinks against the headboard of the bed, a little afraid. Frantically, her eyes dart back and forth, trying to figure out where she is. A man dressed all in black enters the room and pulls the curtains back, letting sunlight flood the room. Sarah's eyes aren't used to it and she has to squint to see past it. She raises an arm to shade her eyes, all the while trying to watch the man as carefully as possible. She doesn't trust him, doesn't trust anyone. "It's good to see that you're awake, Miss. You've been asleep for quite a while," he says, his voice like silk, so unlike the only voice she's heard for fifteen years.

"Where am I?" she asks quietly. She hasn't seen this place before….

"You are at the Phantomhive estate, my master took the liberty of taking you with him when he left Houndsworth," the man explains. Sarah shrinks a little as he reaches to pull the covers back for her. "My master would like to speak to you after you are dressed. Would you like any help with dressing yourself?"

Sarah shakes her head and the man deposits a dress on the bed for her. He quietly exits and Sarah clumsily gets out of bed and dresses herself, shaky fingers fumbling with the ribbon in the back. Finally, she gets it tied and sits down on the edge of the bed, hands quivering. She's afraid. What if this is a cover, what if this is worse than Houndsworth? She doesn't have time to think about it, though, before a bright flash explodes in front of her eyes and she no longer sees her surroundings, only the vision that's presented itself to her.

"_London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down. London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady," a man in a purple coat wearing a feathered top hat sings slowly. He walks forward stiffly, his appearance doll like, right down to the fleur-de-lis on his cheek. "Build it up with iron and steel, iron and steel, iron and steel. Build it up with iron and steel, my fair lady," at his words, an army of dolls marches forward, all of them looking like young girls._

Her hands are on either side of her head, unconsciously pulling at the hair there. Someone's long fingers wrap around her wrists and the touch brings her back to reality. "My master would like to see you now," the black-clad man says, helping her up. She follows him as he leads her to a large room. A young boy sits at the head of a large table, his one visible eye scrutinizing Sarah.

"I am Ciel, the Earl of Phantomhive, and I've been made aware of your situation by Angela," he says.

"Angela? B-but she…she wasn't supposed to tell anyone that I was alive…" Sarah says, her voice shaky.

"You know her?" the young Earl raises an eyebrow.

"She came just before my father…" she trails off, hands shaking. She takes one of her hands in the other and holds it tightly, running her thumb over the back of her hand. The shaking doesn't stop.

"She said that you were mentally unstable," Ciel cuts her off and she hangs her head.

"I'm not crazy," she whispers. "I'm not insane!" Sarah looks up at him. "I used to see the Demon Hound, and every time I saw it… it came. I could tell from the screams in the village. Every vision came true, I could tell. I can tell when the visions come true," she says. She sounds desperate, desperate to be heard. "Please, please believe me," Sarah pleads, holding her hand even tighter. No one ever has believed her.

"We do," Ciel says, his voice calm. "Please, calm down. We're not going to hurt you or send you back to Houndsworth. Your father is not going to come for you, either, he is dead."

Sarah hangs her head as if in shame. "Oh…" she sighs. "W-what's going to happen to me?" she asks quietly.

"Isn't that obvious? You're going to stay here," he explains. Shock makes its way across Sarah's face.

"Why?" she can't raise her voice above a whisper. Her left hand tightens over her right but the shaking doesn't stop. "I don't want to be a problem here, if I'm going to stay, I might as well do something to pay you back for keeping me here." Sarah looks almost guiltily down at her hands.

"If you like, you may earn your keep," Ciel says reasonably. "Mei-rin might want some help as a maid; you can start as soon as your wounds heal enough."

"Thank you!" her face lights up and her head snaps upright to look at her new master. But again the room disappears from view in a blinding flash of light and she's no longer in the present.

_It's an oddly shaped mansion, with a stem like stone column holding it up. The house itself looks like a castle. In an almost-empty room, two people are talking. One is the very doll like man, and one is in a chair facing away from him. What they're saying is inaudible, but their lips are moving. The man holds a small machine in his arms, with a crank on the side. As he turns to leave the room, he turns the crank and the familiar tune of the song "London Bridge" plays._

"Miss Barrymore?" a distant voice calls. Sarah doesn't respond at first, just waits for the image to fade. "Miss Barrymore?" the voice repeats. She blinks and sees the room again. "If you don't mind, can you tell us what it is you saw? Just curious," Ciel says.

"May I show you instead?" she asks, and lets go of her hand. It's not shaking as badly anymore. The black-clad man produced a pencil and paper out of nowhere. "Thank you," Sarah mutters and takes the pencil, drawing the mansion exactly how she remembers it, along with the man and a small section of the doll army. It's not the best drawing in history, but it gets the point across. The man takes is back to Ciel and the young boy raises an eyebrow.

"How do your visions work?" he asks, an almost childish curiosity flickering in his eyes.

"Mostly, I see things that affect me and the people close to me, physically or otherwise," she says like she's explained this before. Sarah has indeed explained it, but once and only to Angela. "I see things that change my fate and theirs. I can't control the visions, either. If I could," she lowers her voice a little, "I wouldn't have had one just now. I'm sorry for that," she finishes with a shaky breath. Everything about Sarah is shaky, like she could be knocked down at any moment.

"I see…" Ciel looks back down at the drawing. "Sebastian, find Mei-rin and have her give Sarah a tour of the mansion. Oh, and remind her to introduce her to the other servants," his eyes never leave the paper.

The man—Sebastian—quickly accomplishes his task. "Hi!" A maid with magenta hair, large glasses, and dressed in a fashion identical to Sarah's comes in. Sarah stands up carefully and follows her as she begins the tour.

(Sebastian's POV)

"You noticed it too, didn't you? Her eyes," Ciel says as soon as Sarah is out of the room.

"I did," Sebastian responds, plainly as always.

"They changed color…" Ciel says. Sarah's eyes had become a swirling reddish pink, identical to the way Sebastian's were at times, during her vision. At the end, though, they had reverted back to their original clear blue.


	4. Are you Human?

(Sarah's POV)

BOOM.

"What was that?" Sarah asks, looking around frantically.

"Oh that's nothing! It's just Bard. Speaking of whom, you should meet him, yes you should!" Mei-rin takes Sarah's hand and leads her into the kitchen. Sarah yawns, tired from having run around the manor with Mei-rin all day, watching her work and learning all of the things she should do. As soon as she breathes in, though, a coughing fits overtakes her. Mei-rin starts coughing too. It's no surprise, what with all the smoke in the room. The young women fan their hands in front of their faces, trying to clear the air. A silhouette moves somewhere in the nebula of sooty air and a man emerges from it, a cigarette hanging from his mouth and his hair puffed up and harboring ashy chunks.

"Hey, Mei-rin, you really gave me a turn there! I thought you were Sebastian for a second!" he says around the cigarette. "Oh, hey there…uh…" he doesn't know Sarah's name.

"Sarah," she says, quiet as always.

"I'm Bard, it's nice to meet you," he holds his hand out, but before Sarah can shake it, a chilling, and angry presence makes itself known.

"Bardroy," a voice, Sebastian's, says. It's cold and dangerously quiet. "What happened here?"

"I wanted to…uh…make lunch a little faster, so I…used a flamethrower," he scratches the back of his neck guiltily.

"Why am I not surprised?" Sebastian sighs. "I will be back to clean this up, and do not—_do not—_destroy anything else in my absence. In the meantime, I will show our new comrade to her bedroom." Sara looks up at the butler and he turns around, signaling with his hand for her to follow him. She obediently does so. It's a short walk to the servants' quarters, and soon Sebastian is opening a door for Sarah. It reveals a small bedroom, with a bed just large enough for its intended occupant. There's also a tiny wardrobe, a nightstand, and an open door leading to a bathroom. "You will share the bathroom with Mei-rin; your rooms are linked by it. You are free to decorate the room as you see fit, Miss Barrymore," he is ever polite.

"Sarah," she says softly. "Please, call me Sarah." Sebastian gives the faintest of nods. He quickly exits the room, seeming to sense the fact that Sarah wants some time alone. The young girl sits down onto the bed timidly, then flat out flops against the pillows. She can't believe how lucky she was. These people…she doesn't know how they had found her, maybe they had heard her scream or something, but they had bandaged her wounds, they had brought her here, they had given her a place to live, and they did not think her crazy. She could have been left in that dirty, dark cell with nobody but Crog, the jailer, for company (and occasionally Angela, when she could get away from Lord Barrymore, but that was rare), and she would have been able to live through it if she had heard the words "we believe you." Those words are priceless to her, to a girl who had been called a liar and a crazy. Sarah Barrymore will forever be in the debt of the Earl Phantomhive. Her late father would have left nothing to her, he would have rather seen everything rot than go to the daughter he refused to acknowledge. Sarah smiles softly, one of her first smiles in years.

(Sebastian's POV)

That girl cannot be completely human. From the flash of her eyes during visions, he can tell that she is not completely human. Maybe she is not human at all. Sebastian has heard of only one thing like this, and that is the Demonic Oracle. But that is nothing but a legend, a myth. The Demonic Oracle is supposed to be a demon born to humans, its nature suppressed until the time is right, presenting itself only in visions. Such a thing would be theoretically impossible, were it not for the fact that a human sacrifice would have been used to create an Oracle—probably the mother. It would have had to be a special project of the Devil himself…but there is no way that could be possible. The Devil would not have time for such a thing, even if the visions could broaden to see the fate of the entire demonic race.

"Sebastian?" Ciel's voice only just reaches him. "How many times to I have to call your name to get your attention today? I can't afford for you to be distant…"

"Forgive me, young master," comes Sebastian's quick apology. He sets the tea down in front of his master and exits with a small click of the door. His next destination is the library, and when he arrives there, he sees Sarah just standing in front of a shelf, gazing up at the plethora of books lining the walls. Her expression is one of absolute awe, like she has never seen such a wealth of literature before. She probably hasn't. Her tentative, pale fingers brush the spines and her eyes light up even more, as if feeling the words under her touch. "You are allowed to read them as well, you know," Sebastian informs her. She jumps slightly, surprised. She looks at him carefully, and Sebastian can almost smell hesitation coming from her.

"May I ask you something, Mr. Michaelis?" she says slowly.

"Yes," Sebastian begins to carefully dust the books, moving the feather duster swiftly back and forth. His back turned to her, his eyes narrow in guarded anticipation.

"Are you human?" the question is quick, but those three words give away more about both Sarah and Sebastian than anything else she could have said at that moment.

"What made you doubt the fact that I am?" he fires his question at her, back still turned.

Sarah picks up a rag that her colleague had brought into the room with him and starts to run it across a table, polishing the wood slowly, methodically, even though she is not supposed to commence working until her wounds heal. "I…I don't know, but I wish to find out," she says, with more confidence and conviction than she has probably ever shown.

(Sarah's POV)

What is she doing? She doesn't know. She does know why she's doing it, though. The butler scares her, unlike any of the other people in the mansion. These people do not make her fear for her life, but he does. No, not just her life. In his presence, she fears for her very soul.

She can hear him laugh slightly. "Good luck," he says, the slightest sarcasm tainting his voice. Sarah exits the library and tries to suppress the urge to run as she goes back to her room. The brisk pace at which she walks makes her wounds flare in pain and she collapses on the bed as soon as she gets to her room.

She stays there well into the night, head buzzing with thoughts. When sleep finally reaches her, the same nightmare as always plagues her dreams—the night her father gave her away.


End file.
